so when you look at every parameter 10 times, 17 times, 20 times infection, hospitalization, death. >> thank you, dr. fauci. ms. o'connell i want to ask you about additional vaccine development. the current vaccines against covid as was indicated by dr. fauci's answer have been successful in reducing death and severity and hospital admissions but more limited success in preventing forward transmission from vaccinated individuals after breakthrough cases and existing vaccines are not as durable as vaccines in other areas so we need booster shots to continue to protect against the virus. is the administration considering supporting the development of additional vaccines that might be able to address the gaps in the current vaccine's capabilities? >> thank you so much for that question. yes, absolutely. we all see the need for next

generation vaccines and anti-virals and therapeutics as well. we're in the process of working with dr. fauci's team to develop a unified nir research agenda and budget to address these issues to identify candidates that might already be in the pipeline to help support the research into candidates that are just starting in the pipeline so we can accelerate the availability of next generation vaccines and therapeutics. >> thank you for that answer. dr. walensky i would like to ask you a question about access to testing and in particular what is the cdc doing to make sure that testing capacity is robust in rural america and also among community health centers in disadvantaged parts of the country? >> thank you, senator kaine. we have this program increased community access to testing in collaboration with as per as well. this is a program that has

collaborated with fema to increase surge testing just over the holidays. we've increased testing, federal testing sites for pcrs doing thousands of tests over the holiday and in collaboration with pharmacies. in that stead we're able to map where the pharmacies are and special vulnerable and we can put the tests there. and then we actually put tests in our community centers as well. so a broad stretch in order to be able to get access to testing especially among those most vulnerable and of course $10 billion for testing supplies to our schools and working closely with our schools in peer-to-peer support in technical support to allow those tests to be used well in those school settings. thank you. >> dr. fauci one more question

for you. i asked a version of this question every time we have this panel before us. what is the nih doing right now or what's the current status of nih research to better understand long covid to look at symptoms and potential treatments? >> there are several levels of activity going on. some new since we spoke last. i had mentioned to you, senator, that in fact there was a 1.15 billion program for studying long covid that is now developing co-horts to look at various incidences, prevalences pathogens and potential interventions. a number of awards that have been given, most recently in september there was an additional $470 million funding supported through the american rescue plan engaging about 100 researchers from 30 institutions to get individuals together. one of the things that is

really interesting that we're seeing right now is that when you look at individuals who have these symptoms that go on as you know and have experienced yourself, for a considerable period of time a recent study that is in the pre-print stage, so it hasn't been peer reviewed, has some very interesting information. it was an autopsy study in people who had varying levels of covid from relatively mildly symptomatic to moderate symptoms to individuals who died. when they looked at the spread of what was not necessarily replication competent virus, but was pcrable virus, that means you can have things that were there. there seems to be a persistence in multiple organ systems indicating that even if you clear the virus, one of the possibilities -- i have to

emphasize possibility because it needs to be validated, is that you don't completely clear the fragments of the virus and you have continual stimulation not that you are infectious or will infect anybody else but it is still generating perhaps a response in your immune system. i underscore it is preliminary and needs to be peer reviewed but some of the information we're starting to gather. >> thank you very much for that answer. >> senator paul. >> dr. fauci, the idea that a government official like yourself would claim unilaterally to represent science and that any criticism of you would be considered a criticism of science itself is quite dangerous. central planning whether of the economy or of science is risky because of the fall built of the planner. it wouldn't be so catastrophic if it were one position in

peoria. the mistake would only effect those patients and when the planner is a government official like yourself who rules by mandate, the errors are compounded and become much more harmful. a planner who believes he is the science leads to an arrogance that justifies in his mind using government resources to smear and to destroy the reputations of other scientists who disagree with him. in an email exchange with dr. collins i quote directly from the email. to create a quick an devastating published take down of three prominent epidemiologists from harvard, oxford and stanford. there are a lot of finishing ep deem ol yifts there. you quote in the email that they are fringe. immediately there is this take down effort. it doesn't conjure up the image

of a dispassionate scientist. instead of engaging them on the merits you thought to smear them as fringe and take them down. not in journals, in lay press. this is not only an thet call to the scientific method it is the cheap politics and it is reprehensible dr. fauci. do you think it's appropriate to use your 420,000 salary to attack scientists that disagree with you? >> the email you are referring to was an email of dr. collins to me. if you look at the email. >> that you responded to and said i can do it. we got something. >> no, i think in ooushl fashion, senator, you are distorting everything about me. >> did you ever object to his characterization of them as fringe. did you write back and say no they are not fringe and it would be beneath me to do that. you responded that you would do it. you immediately got an article wired and sent it back and said

look, i've got them and i nailed them in wired. >> that's not what went on. there you go again. you do the same thing every hearing. >> that was your response. it wasn't the only time. your desire to take down people. >> you are incorrect as usual, senator. you are incorrect almost everything you say. >> this wasn't the only time. your desire to take down those who disagree with you didn't stop there. you conspired with peter dazaq and other members of the scientific community that wrote opinion pieces for nature, five of them signed a paper for nature. 17 signed a paper that called it conspiracy theory. the idea that the virus could have originated in the lab. do you think words like conspiracy theory should be in a scientific paper? >> senator, i never used that word when i was referring to it. you are distorting virtually everything.

>> did you communicate with the five scientists who wrote the opinion piece in nature where they were describing >> this was not me. >> did you talk with any of those scientists privately? >> you keep distorting the truth. it is stunning. >> did you talk to any of the scientists privately. >> yes. >> what were they telling you privately. >> you are going back to that original discussion when i brought together a group of people to look at every possibility with an open mind. not only are you distorting it, you are completely turning it around. >> most of the scientists who came to you privately and say no way this came from the lab? or was there initial impression dr. gary and others involved was there initial impression that it looked suspicious for a virus that came from a lab? >> senator, we are here at a committee to look at a virus now that has killed almost

900,000 people and the purpose of the committee was to try and get things out how we can help to get the american public. you keep coming back to personal attacks on me that have absolutely no relevance to reality. >> you think anybody has had more influence over our response to this than you have? do you think it's a great success what has happened so far? do you think the lockdowns have been good for our kids and slowed down the death right? more people died under president biden than president trump. are you the architect, the lead architect for the response from the government and now 800,000 people have died. you think it is a winning success what you have advocated for government? >> senator, first of all, if you look at everything that i said i accuse me of in a way telling people what they need to do. everything that i said has been in support of the cdc guidelines.

wear a mask, get boosted, >> and you've made it coercive and done by mandate. you've advocated your infallible opinion by dictated by law. >> so again, madam chair i would like a couple of minutes. this happens all the time. you personally attack me and with absolutely not a shred of evidence of anything you say. so i would like to make something clear to the committee. he is doing this for political reasons. what you need to do is -- he said in front of this committee. >> you think your takedown of prominent epidemiologists was not political? >> you know what i'm going to say. >> taking down 93 prominent epidemiologists. >> senator paul. i will allow dr. fauci to respond. we have a number of senators who would like to ask questions and i would like him to be able to respond. >> so the last time we had a committee or the time before he

was accusing me of being responsible for the death of 4 to 5 million people which is irresponsible. why is he doing that? two reasons why that is really bad. the first is it distracts from what we're all trying to do here today is get our arms around the epidemic and pandemic we're dealing with, not something imaginary. number two, what happens when he gets out and accuses me of things that are completely untrue is that all of a sudden that kindls the crazies out there and i have threats upon my life, harassments of my family, and my children with obscene phone calls because people are lying about me. now, i guess you could say that's the way it goes, i can take the hit. well, it makes a difference because as some of you may

know, just about three or four weeks ago on december 21st a person was arrested who was on their way from sacramento to washington, d.c. at a speed stop in iowa and they asked -- the police asked him where he was going and he was going to washington, d.c. to kill dr. fauci. and they found in his car an ar-15 and multiple magazines of ammunition because he thinks that maybe i'm killing people. so i asked myself why would senator want to do this? so go to rand paul website and you see fire dr. fauci with a little box that says contribute here. you can do $5, $10, $20, $100. you are making a catastrophic epidemic for your political gain. >> you have politically attacked your colleagues in a

politically reprehensible way to wreck their reputation. you won't defend it or argue it. >> we'll continue this hearing. we have a number of questions. >> one more minute. >> dr. fauci i appreciate your response but we have a number of questions from senators and we do have a second round and i'm being asked to make sure everybody has their time. thank you. >> thank you very much for allowing me, madam chair. >> we'll move to senator murphy. >> dr. fauci, thank you. thank you first of all for what you do. you shouldn't have to put your life at risk. you shouldn't have to put your family's life at risk to simply stand up and do your job to try to protect my constituents from a pandemic disease. and thank you for calling out this agenda for what it is. an attempt to score political points to build a political power base around the denial of science and around personal attacks on you and your family. on social media i follow many

of president trump's advisors and family members and they make a sport out of attacking you personally. some of the most vicious, hateful, ugly ways. >> harris: i'm harris faulkner and we're covering this hour of the hearing there with dr. fauci and dr. walensky, the cdc director. it just got really heated and we wanted to pull back for just a moment because we want to get some perspective on where we are in our fight against covid-19 and that was quite a fight. dr. marc siegel in focus now. fox news contributor, professor at nyu langone medical center. what do you make of that, doctor? >> it was a really amazing personal attack that went on. i have to tell you, i know both of these men very well and i have a positive feeling about both of them. i have met with senator paul, i think he is an excellent physician not just a senator. i think this has turned into a personal issue.

dr. fauci i would say only one thing on the negative side. he tends to be dogmatic. if he has an idea he sticks to it and maybe doesn't pivot quickly enough. we're in a position where everyone is frustrated and had covid already and got reinfected. what happened to the idea was i protected by immunity or i had a vaccine and booster and still got infected. a lot of people didn't have a booster. you heard in the hearing that we don't have the tests and they are stored in warehouses. warehouses that aren't even intended for these tests. the idea that government isn't protecting us. dr. fauci's role and he was clear, if you get vaccinated you are 10 times less likely to get infected and 20 times less likely to die and where we have to start. i really felt for him that he is getting his life on the line here. he is being threatened and people are coming towards him

with guns. he is somebody that has been a visionary in science for a long, long time. should he call himself science? no. what we need right now is humbleness in the face of this virus which is beating all of us. >> harris: humility seems to be in short supply and it's part of the problem with some of the messaging around all of this from the white house and agency to agencies. we talk about it all the time that when your ego tells you you know everything and can tell other people to do everything sometimes you don't bring forth your humanity. dr. walensky now, dr. siegel, you will stand by with me here on the "focus." let's watch. >> available for every child over the age of 5 and the children who are in the hospital now are largely those who are unvaccinated. first and foremost one of the most important things that changed get our children and teenagers vaccinated. if our teenagers are elible we have boosters available for teenagers as well. we saw through the delta surge

we were able to keep our children safely in school before vaccines. now today what do we have for our children? we have vaccines that we can use, we have school testing programs and new science that demonstrates tests the stay. this is where a child might be exposed in the classroom but if they are exposed they don't have to stay home and quarantine. test every other day or twice a week and stay in the classroom safely. what that has demonstrated is hundreds of thousands of person days of children in school rather than at home. we've new science that has demonstrated the value of masking. 3 1/2 times increased risk of school outbreaks if you are unmasked in schools versus if you're masking in schools. this week we updated oir k-12 guidance consistent with our isolation quarantine guidance for the general public so people can come back to school after isolation after five days. >> thank you for that and for your commitment to keeping our schools open. quick question for you, ms.

o'connell. talking about in-home tests. a lot of focus on in-home tests today. antigen tests, there are some interesting research going on about the ability to make pcr tests available at home and there is companies all over the country including one in connecticut that believe that with some additional investment to bring those tests to scale we could get pcr tests into family's hands at home for a cost that is at or below what we're currently charging our companies are currently charging for antigen tests. is that a possibility? >> we share your interest in seeing as many tests available for the american people as quickly as possible. and we've worked closely with several of the manufacturers you mentioned for these at-home pcr tests. we've contracted with one of them and reached 5 million per month manufacturing capacity in contract with them and continue to look at the others in ways that we can support them. i would also like to say nih

colleagues in a program called rapid acceleration of diagnostics are working closely with these companies as well as they go through development stages. we remain committed and look forward to partnering them as they bring the products forward. >> senator collins. >> thank you. ms. o'connell, over the past two years congress has appropriated 82.6 billion dollars specifically for testing. in addition, we've given the department flexibility to use other sources of funding and yet as you've heard repeatedly today, our frustrated constituents cannot find rapid tests when they need them. this testing crisis appears to

have been entirely preventable as is evidenced by the availability, the widespread availability of rapid tests in europe, for example. the fact is that it appears the administration simply failed to anticipate our testing needs. as the former assistant secretary of health recently pointed out, a lack of federal orders for tests between january and september of 2021 caused the manufacturers to reduce their lines and lay workers off, including at abbott facilities in the state of maine where 400 workers were laid off. as a member of the appropriations committee, i share the concerns that have been expressed by senators burr and blunt. i don't believe that we're in the position that we are in now

due to a lack of funding but rather a lack of planning. my question to you is has any of this funding, this close to $83 billion that was supposed to be used for testing been diverted for other purposes? >> senator collins, thank you for this question. testing remains a priority for this administration. all the work we've done on testing has been to promote the priorities of expanding the number of testing sites available. expanding the type of tests that are available for use in the united states, expanding the supply of tests in the united states, and lowering the cost of tests. we use the money that came with the american rescue plan. $10 billion went to schools to

set up the school testing programs. 8.3 billion has gone to community testing sites including for the uninsured and at the community health centers and pharmacy programs, dr. walensky mentioned it. 5 billion gone to procure tests and supplies and an additional 4.5 billion will go towards the 500 million tests that are in the process of pro curing. the testing money as you recall was for testing, contact tracing, and mitigation efforts. some of that funds have been used for mitigation efforts. for example, when children are crossing the border, one of the responsibilities that we have within nhs is make sure anyone -- that the children unaccompanied are cared for and

we used some of the funds to test those children and then to separate them from covid negative children at the border. >> i'm going to repeat my question because you did not answer it. has any of that money been used for non-testing related purposes at the border? >> for the mitigation purposes as well which the legislation allowed the funding to be used for. >> i will follow up with you because i don't feel like i'm getting an answer. dr. fauci, just last week the president once again said that covid-19 is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. and let me make very clear that i have encouraged vaccinations and i believe in them.

but contradicting the president's statement, in maine our largest health system reported that absences of vaccinated staff caused by covid-19 last week was at the highest point since vaccines became available. increased by four fold. does the message that covid is a pandemic of the unvaccinated still hold true with the emergence of omicron? and do you agree with "the new york times" which has twice reported that while the covid vaccine is critical in preventing hospitalizations and deaths, it is less effective against the omicron variant? >> thank you for that question,

senator. yes indeed there is no doubt that the omicron variant, when you look at the protection against symptomatic disease and asymptomatic infection dramatically goes down to about 30%. what maintains itself, it goes up to about 70 -- it's about 70% against severe disease. when you boost, when you boost. what happens is you get a rather significant reconstitution of the protection against hospitalization. so if you were to say that omicron or even covid-19 as it is really a pandemic when you are talking about pandemic that causes serious disease, there is no doubt that there is an extraordinary divur against of risk between a vaccinated and an unvaccinated persons. in response to the question

just a bit ago when i said that if you look at vaccinated versus unvaccinated, there is a 17 times greater chance of being hospitalized and a 20 times greater chance of dying if you are unvaccinated versus vaccinated. >> thank you. >> thank you, madam chair and ranking member, thank you for our witnesses for being here today and ongoing work. i deeply appreciate it. dr. fauci, i want to start with a couple of questions for you. we need to make sure that individuals who become seriously ill with covid-19 can receive treatment and that doctors have clear guidelines on the effectiveness of each treatment for the latest variant. and you touched on this in your opening statement but i would like you to just expand a little bit on this. if light of omicron, how is the

administration evaluating new covid-19 treatments and monitoring the effectiveness of existing treatments? >> thank you for that question, senator. there are a number of studies that have been conducted and that are being conducted right now. they have to do with studies that are nih sponsored, one is the adaptive covid-19 treatment trials or act, actt. it was the basis for the fda approval of the ant viral others showed several in the clinical trials to be effective at first against delta. we know now a couple of them except for one has now lost some of its effectiveness. there is another group of

studies called active. there are six of those. that stands for accelerating covid-19 therapeutic interventions and vaccines. the whole gamut of direct anti-virals and monoclonal antibodies. as i mentioned anti-virals like paxlovid and others, the trials were done by the nih. in direct answer to how we know what to use, the nih has put together a guidelines panel made up of 48 highly-qualified clinicians and individuals with experience in covid-19 to give a prioritization of what you do if you are infected and with advanced disease in the hospital as well as what you do as an outpatient.

and they are fairly clearly delineated in the guidelines, which is easily accessible by just going -- >> harris: dr. marc siegel, professor at nyu medical center. i'm harris faulkner in "the faulkner focus". you and i spoke moments ago and pointed out it got personal for rand paul and dr. fauci. all of the part of that aside, though, in terms of the drama there were some points to be made along the way of that conversation and others about where we are right now. so what are the highlights the take away for you? >> first with that conversation the one thing i didn't say before was that what senator paul is pointing out that is valid is were there people that were putting forth what the nih considered to be margin altherr piece and were they

marginalized by fauci and collins. sometimes they became tomorrow's cures. throughout the pandemic there has been too much of that. with hydroxychloroquine and other treatments. now as you cut into me dr. fauci is talking about therapeutics we do have. there is a tremendous scarcity of them. how we get to these treatments but we don't have them out there. >> harris: why don't we have them out there? >> i think we don't have them out there because the administration didn't anticipate this problem and didn't pay in advance to pfizer, to gsk, they didn't anticipate omicron. the president himself said we didn't anticipate omicron. >> harris: they didn't

anticipate variants. i know you have a baseline, if you're not a doctor a baseline understanding of variants and all that sort of thing but basically we're a mutation. i don't know what she was studying. >> exactly, harris. that's brilliant. what's going on if countries like africa is they aren't vaccinating people and people have h.i.v. and if you got covid it percolates for a while and mutates inside a person and where we think omicron actually came from. so if you have whole areas spreading covid and not following it and they aren't vaccinated you will see more and more variants emerging. the one positive to say is omicron is so contagious it looks like it has crowded out other variants. and we'll end up with -- we may see a swath of immunity but certainly getting there the hard way. i wish more and more people were vaccinated, boosted, plus

getting over infection. i think that would slow this down quicker. >> harris: what you are talking about and a takeaway i clearly understood anybody who was pushing -- i won't name any hosts on other networks the idea that the vaccine would perfectly protect you, it was simply a lie. what it did was mitigated things when you got them. now what you are saying with vaccination, with whatever other weapons we have, we can actually help this thing move along and push it out of our lives because omicron is overall less deadly. i want to move on to this. the biden administration is facing more criticism for its policy prioritizing race and ethnicity for treatment of high-risk covid patients. a washington examner op-ed titled covid isn't racist. our treatments shouldn't be racist either says the cure for racial discrimination cannot be racial discrimination. in public policy backed by the

force of the state the states apparatus should operate equally upon every human individual regardless of race or ethnicity. the states should vigorously punish racial discrimination. it should not practice any such discrimination of its own, not even in the name of equity. i talked with -- i talked about this with the former u.s. surgeon general under president trump jerome adams yesterday. >> i want people to understand why they did it. there are studies that show race is an independent risk factor for dying from covid. now to the how. i don't approve of how they did it. what we need to do is tell people if you're african-american, native american, hispanic you are at higher risk and you need to a, make sure you are vaccinated. we shouldn't be using race as an independent factor to decide who gets treatment. >> harris: your thoughts, dr.

siegel. >> i have enormous amount of respect for dr. adams and interviewed him as well. i would word it a little differently. here is what i think. if you go to actually prescribe paxlovid it asks you for the race of your patient. i don't like that. physicians need to be fully informed as to the following. that black people are more likely to have medical problems that may make me more worried about them. more inclined to have diabetes and obese and high blood pressure. more front line healthcare workers that are black. they have a history of being mistreated by the medical establishment in the united states going back 400 years the slavery and onto the experiments where black men were experimented on and weren't given treatment to cure

syphilis. they get treated later. it all needs to go to a physician's mind treating a patient but not use the word race. >> harris: for all the things you laid out why a tremendous number of people who look like me aren't vaccinated. i am. they have made choices based on some of what you have just said. why does the white house say it is the unvaccinated pandemic? they make it about trump voters and politics but from what you're saying and what i've been saying for quite some time the predominant number of people who don't want to be vaccinated are people of color. >> that's true. or people that distrust the administration as well. i particularly don't like that term pandemic of the unvaccinated right now when we see so many breakthrough cases of omicron in people who are vaccinated. we are all in the same boat. you can make the point that severity plays a big role. you get a milder case if you

are vaccinated but you still get infected. we have to come together. the idea of calling it a pandemic of the unvaccinated leads to the mandates, the super imposition of big government. i don't think it works. >> harris: thanks for being with me to break down the breaking news and more today. always good to have you in "focus." >> great to be with you, harris. >> harris: president biden and vice president kamala harris are headed to atlanta, georgia today in a push to pass democrats' voting rights legislation which would federalize elections taking power away from the states. georgia at the forefront of election integrity of voter fraud battles and now set to be the stage for the president's aim at an elections overhaul. some notable no-shows for today's event. voting rights leaders planning to skip the spectacle in protest of what they say is administration inaction. this is an interesting twist. georgia's democrat governor candidate stacey abrams will

also miss the event citing a scheduling conflict. i guess that's possible. the speech amp up the filibuster fights as they target the hold-outs joe manchin and kyrsten sinema. the president trying to change the filibuster rule in order to pass election legislation. however, top republicans are sounding the alarm. >> they want to silence millions of americans and take over the senate so they can take over elections. so they can take over america. >> don't you understand that if we change it for one piece of legislation you like that we can do the same when we're in power and that's the end of it all. this is being driven by the most radical people in politics. >> harris: ronna mcdaniel rnc chairwoman with me now. talk with me about the baseline politics being played here and is there a risk factor for the left? >> i will say i know what

stacey abrams conflict is. it is biden's very bad poll numbers. listen, this is a total overreach by the left. it is so -- to hear the left talk about vaccine mandates, you can't go to a restaurant without showing your vaccine card but they want to strip away showing your i.d. to vote. which 80% of the american people agree with according to npr. this is something that most of us think should happen just to make sure our elections are secure. they are overreaching here. joe biden is in georgia, he should be in new york where they just allowed non-citizens to vote in elections. maybe he should fight that instead. >> harris: i had the former secretary of state mike pompeo talking about what is unrolling here under mayor eric adams. he said if you allow people who are citizens somewhere else,

you let foreigners vote not being citizens of the united states. it is absolutely not right. the rnc as you know posted a video of democrats previously defending the filibuster. we move to that. let's look at recent history together. >> they want to make this country into a ban an that republic. if you don't get your way you change the rules. >> legislative filibuster should stay there. i will personally resist efforts to get rid of it. >> i'm committed to never voting to change the legislative filibuster. >> that would be the end of the senate. >> it raises problems more damaging than the problems that exist. >> harris: look who that was, the current president. chairwoman. >> chuck schumer said it was doomsday for democracy. that's what he said. so many democrats were vocal. said we cannot get rid of the filibuster until they were in power and couldn't pass their

legislation because they couldn't get enough support from 60 senators and they're doing the ultimate power grab. they don't just want to change the filibuster. pull the elections away from the states. get rid of i.d. laws, expand ballot harvesting. it is the greatest power grab in the history of our country and democrats only have to listen to their own words to understand how bad this is. >> harris: wow. speaking of democrats let's jump to the house because many of them right now double digit numbers continue to jump ship. colorado representative is the latest to say they will not seek reelection. now bringing it to 26. many republicans are forecasting a red wave in november. house minority leader kevin mccarthy is already making plans if the gop were to retake

the majority. he says he will put three high profile democrats on the chopping block ahead of committees day one. >> the democrats created a new thing picking and choosing who could be on committee. never have you had the majority tell the minority who could be on committee. the new standard which these democrats voted for. if eric swalwell cannot get a security clearance in the private sector, there is no reason why he should be given one to be on intel or homeland security. ilhan omar shouldn't be on foreign affairs. >> is this the way to go? >> i think that's a really good point. if swalwell can't get a security clearance in the private sector he shouldn't have one in the congressional caucus. kevin mccarthy is making a national security point there. the democrats have been so wrong in the way they've played this. i think the red wave started back in 2020 where we picked up

15 house seats and didn't lose a single incumbent seat and we'll see it continue. we're at 212 now in the house. so this is a high, high benchmark we're starting from. 20 or 30 seats would be a big win for republicans in 2022. >> harris: what are some of the things that policy-wise you could forecast that will happen right away if that majority flips? the house minority leader kevin mccarthy is talking about what he would do in terms of leadership. what about policy? >> i do think oversight will be a big part of what the house does. kevin indicated they'll go back and look at the coronavirus and covid-19 and the origins. it is important we understand if it did come from a lab how it happened, what safety protocols were missed so we never make this mistake again. it's one of the things

including the border that republicans will tackle when we take back the majority. >> harris: why would president biden suddenly -- we don't know what he will do with the filibuster but i imagine he won't turn a completely deaf ear because of those polling numbers you mentioned. >> this is democrats reaching -- they lost the build back. they failed on the pandemic. they failed on testing, a failure of planning not a failure of having money. they had plenty of money. they did not plan appropriately on the therapeutics and testing front. er is tlieg to georgia to distract and change the subject. make up a narrative that is completely false. >> harris: we'll see if one plane ride can get it done. i don't know. months of messaging couldn't do it. ronna mcdaniel chairwoman of the rnc. thanks for being in "focus." >> thanks for having me. >> harris: fewer than two weeks

on the job and manhattan's new district attorney is facing a lot of heat. >> low-level crimes which he is saying would get a pass almost always lead to more serious crimes. alvin bragg is talking about endless chances and that's a problem. >> harris: manhattan d.a. alvin bragg has ordered his team to not prosecute certain crimes. some violent. critics are demanding the governor pull him from the job. jason chaffetz in "focus" next. s to make dentistry work for your life. so we offer a complete exam and x-rays free to new patients without insurance - everyday. plus, patients get 20% off their treatment plan. we're on your corner and in your corner every step of the way. because your anything is our everything. aspen dental. anything to make you smile.

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that nypd and judges and criminals are well aware of his intent. >> district attorney alvin bragg is sending a clear message to all of us taxpayers and law-abiding new yorkers, i am here to protect the criminals. >> he is ordering his a.d.a. to make a blanket top down do not charge people with serious crimes despite the fact we have a fact pattern that warrants it. >> harris: that seemed perfectly clear to me although the new d.a. says he can't understand what all the pushback is about and keeps defending it. >> we can't incarcerate our way out of this and a number of matters that shouldn't be criminalized. we have addiction, we have mental health. that is something we need to connect that person with services a and reserve our criminal justice system for matters that people are sitting around their kitchen table talking about, the shootings, for example. >> harris: the shootings for example. who does he think are actually

doing the shootings for example? jason chaffetz fox news contributor in "focus" now. >> this is outrageous that less than two weeks on the job and the district attorney is saying see all these laws that are on the books that are illegal? i'm not going to prosecute them. it's as if they are no longer illegal. you can have a policeman show up. you can have somebody but they aren't going to prosecute it. no consequence. criminals figure it out fast. it won't be harder and tougher on crime. it will make the city of new york city and manhattan safer, but more dangerous. but shame on the voters for getting this one wrong. ultimately this is the voters that put this person in power. >> harris: george soros had something to do to get everybody's attention. he dumped cash and other d.a.s like san francisco and l.a. the voters must have fallen for

some of that. a lot out there pushing him. i want to ask you about the chatter to get this to the top of the state. should the governor take a look at what he is doing? how does that sideline a brand-new mayor eric adams? >> the point about mayor adams they are in direct conflict with each other. >> harris: i would think. >> the mayor said he wants to get tougher on crime and wants to reinstitute the under cover police officers but he is saying i want to allow people here illegally to vote in the city. so you are talking about hundreds of thousands of people that could potentially vote on these types of positions on district attorneys and what not. that's where this is eventually going. they don't have the same type of recall in new york city that they have in other places. it really does require a governor to take personal responsibility and move this process forward. it's a very complicated process. you can't simply put forward a

recall effort but it has been two weeks, folks. i don't care how much money they spent. they have to enforce it. >> harris: if mayor adams is really interested if lowering crime as you say, why start with giving non-citizens the right to vote? why start there? florida governor ron desantis capitalizing on the several democrats who backed strict covid restrictions in their own backyards and states but have vacationed in florida after attacking his pandemic response. he is selling escape to florida shirts on his website. >> those t-shirts will sell out and as soon as i get done i'll order one. he is right. yeah, are you kidding? it will be a collector's item. aoc vacationing in florida doesn't get better than that.

>> harris: i don't know. hypocrisy stinks to high heaven and so much on display you can't miss it with what's going on. all right, jason chaffetz. great to have you in "focus." thank you very much. "outnumbered" right after this commercial break. e choices theye like the splash they create the entrance they make, the surprises they initiate. otezla. it's a choice you can make. otezla is not a cream. it's a pill that treats plaque psoriasis differently. with otezla, 75% clearer skin is achievable. don't use if you're allergic to otezla. it may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression. tell your doctor if you have a history of depression or suicidal thoughts or if these feelings develop. some people taking otezla reported weight loss. your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment. upper respiratory tract infection and headache may occur. tell your doctor about your medicines,

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